1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved structure of an interface card connector capable of reducing the connecting portions between the terminals and the circuit board to produce more space and area for the layout of the main board or the arrangement of the electronic components.
2. Description of Prior Art
Generally, various interface cards, such as display card, network card or sound card, are inserted on the main board of a computer. In the connection between the interface card and the main board, an interface card connector is necessarily used to accomplish the transmission and communication of the signals.
With the rapid development in the processing speed of the current computer, the requirements for the functions of the display card are also raised. Accordingly, the area of the circuit board of the display card is increased. Also, in the corresponding interface card connector, the length of the slot inserted by the display card is increased therefore. When the length of the slot of the interface card connector is increased, the volume of the connector will be inevitably enlarged. Once the volume of the connector is enlarged, the enlarged connector necessarily occupies a larger space and area on the main board, causing the difficulty in the design and layout of the signal circuits on the main board.
Taiwan Patent Publication No. M271270 entitled “Improved structure of PCI interface card connector” and Taiwan Patent No. 1249976 entitled “Main board and PCI Express x16 slot of the same” are proposed to solve the above problems. Both patent documents employ a lower-level connector, such as 1×, 4× or 8×. On side of such kind of connector is provided with a notch in communication and linear alignment with the slot. A supporting piece is also used to fasten the upper and lower edges of the interface card to correspond to a longer 16× interface card. Although the above measure can reduce the occupied area of the circuit board, a portion of the gold finger unit of the interface card is exposed. As a result, the interface card is more likely to be oxidized. Further, since the connector and the supporting piece are designed separately, the connector and the supporting piece may be easily misaligned with each other due to the error in assembling on the circuit board, affecting the stability and smoothness of the insertion of the interface card. If the error is too large, the insertion of the interface card may not be allowed. As a result, the chance of low yield of the products is increased.
In view of the above, the inventor proposes the present invention to overcome the above problems based on his expert experiences and deliberate researches.